


Every Summer

by cosmic_llin



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: 5 Things, F/F, Pre-Canon, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24590212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: Five last days of the year.
Relationships: Ada Cackle/Hecate Hardbroom
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34
Collections: The Hackle Summer Trope Challenge





	Every Summer

Hecate’s almost certain they’ve forgotten that the spell is still on her. It’s been years, after all, and her behaviour since has been exemplary. The teachers have given out a million punishments and penalties in the intervening time, perhaps they all blur together. She certainly doesn’t feel like the same girl who broke the Code back then.

She waits outside Mrs Cackle’s office, listens to the chatter and laughter and goodbyes in the distance, hesitates. As of this afternoon she’s no longer a pupil, no longer bound by the discipline of the school. It would be sensible to just march in and politely ask for the spell to be lifted. Mrs Cackle would hardly refuse.

But it’s not as though she has somewhere else to be - she spends every summer in the castle anyway, and she’s coming back next term as a classroom assistant, the first step in a training programme that will end in a teaching qualification.

She could have applied to a college elsewhere, but something in her resisted the idea of leaving Indigo. And it’s that same thought that keeps her from knocking on the door, that makes her turn away instead and go back outside to watch the other girls flying away, like Indigo never will.

Whenever she thinks of leaving, that thought fastens her feet to the ground.

~

Hecate watches the graduating students go with a sense of finality that settles like a weight on her bones. At first she thinks it’s because this was her last year of training, that after the summer she’ll be a potions teacher in her own right.

She sees little Effie Hyssop, not so little any more, flying away with supreme confidence to what Hecate knows is the beginning of a career as a healer. And then she realises. Effie and her cohort, who were first-years when Hecate was in her final year, are the last pupils who remember her as one of them. When next term begins, to every single pupil she’ll be a fixture, a part of the school as integral as the classrooms and the hall. She’ll be no different in their eyes to Miss Bat, who she’s sure has been here for decades.

It’s oddly comforting. Now, with her new qualification and a fresh, uncomplicated face to show to the world, she has everything she needs to settle fully into a quiet, ordered life. She’ll teach, she’ll guide, she’ll help her pupils to avoid the mistakes she made, and perhaps someday it will be atonement enough for her crimes.

~

‘Thank you for everything, Miss Hardbroom!’ says Nettie Crowsfoot, with a wave and a smile, and Hecate lets herself smile and wave back.

It’s been something of a surprise to her, the fact that she really likes teaching. Perhaps loves it, even.

Back when she first decided on this career, her only concerns were staying near Indigo and finding a way to do enough good to balance out her mistake. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder whether she would actually enjoys teaching.

But she does.

The first thing she started to enjoy was planning the lessons - organising the information in the most logical order, building concepts one on top of another so that understanding would flow like a cascade.

Then, no matter how she tried not to, she kept finding herself caring about her students. She tries to be stone, to deny herself all connection, but the longer she does it the more tiring and untenable it is. She tells herself that it makes her a better teacher, and even if she feels fondness or pride she usually tries her best not to show it.

On the last day of term though, even she can’t hide her feelings completely.

~

Miss Cackle is going to spend her summer at the castle.

Hecate isn’t sure how she feels about it.

She’s never the only one there, but the few who remain tend, like her, to mostly keep to themselves. Occasionally she sees them at meals or meets them in corridors, but on the whole she speaks so little over the summer that it takes a day or two for her voice to fully return when term starts again.

She doubts Miss Cackle will be the same. Miss Cackle loves to talk, Hecate’s learned this past year, and she has an endless supply of topics. She’s spent the past several years teaching at other witching schools in order to learn a broad range of educational techniques, and travelling widely during the holidays, so she’s never at a loss for an anecdote or a comment on the teaching problem of the day.

Part of Hecate is cross that her quiet summer is going to be disturbed. She likes her routine, and this will disrupt it considerably.

But Miss Cackle’s smile is dazzling, and though she does talk a lot, the things she says are always worth hearing.

So when they wave off the last few stragglers and Miss Cackle turns to her and says, ‘Shall we go and have a cup of tea to celebrate the start of the holidays?’, Hecate agrees.

~

This won’t be the first summer she’s spent with Ada, who often stays at the school during the holidays, but it’s the first since their tentative Halloween kiss, their secret winter walks hand in hand, that warm spring night in Ada’s bed. And they have a million plans to fill it with.

The thought is making Hecate particularly buoyant - she even lets several final-year girls hug her without so much as a token protest - but she nudges it aside to concentrate on the day. There are prizes to give, wishes of good luck to impart, parents to talk to about extra practice during the holidays. There will be plenty of time for the rest over the next few weeks.

‘Come on,’ says a passing mother to her daughter, ‘let’s get you home.’

And that’s the first time Hecate really thinks about it, really realises that _this_ is her home, has become so in spite of everything. She’s made herself a life here, and it’s a good one.

She can’t wait to spend this summer with Ada, but it’s just as sweet to know that when it’s over, another autumn term will be waiting for them.


End file.
